Elizabeth Ann Antill was born at Jarvisfield, her wealthy family’s estate, at Picton, New South Wales, Australia, on the 30th July 1871, the daughter of John Macquarie and Jessie Hassall Antill (née Campbell). She was the youngest of eight children, and her father, as well as being a successful businessman, was the resident magistrate in Picton. Her family had a long and distinguished history of military service, and one of her older brothers, John Macquarie Antill, rose to the rank of Brigadier General, serving in Egypt at the beginning of World War I, and later commanded the 2nd Infantry Brigade, which fought at Ypres and on the Somme.
On the 19th August 1891, she married Captain Harry Beauchamp Lassetter, a career army officer, then serving with the 80th Regiment. He was later promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and commanded the 2nd New South Wales Mounted Rifles in the Boer War from 1901 to 1902. In 1911, he became managing director of his father’s business firm, but still remained involved in the military. Their only child, a son named Frederick Macquarie Lassetter, was born in 1892.
By 1911, Elizabeth and her son had travelled to England, taking up residence in Chelsea, London, as Fred
On the outbreak of the Great War, her husband saw his duty as being with the British Army once more, and leaving the business in the hands of others, he left Australia with his wife and made the journey back to Great Britain, taking up residence at Fitzray, New Walk, Beverley, Yorkshire.
By this time, their son Frederick Macquarie Lassetter, had enlisted as a private soldier in 1/14th (County of London) Battalion, The London Regiment, (London Scottish) (Territorial Force) and had been wounded at Messines, in Belgium, near the town of Ypres, in October 1914.
Subsequently, whilst slowly recovering from his wounds, he applied for convalescent leave and was granted permission to accompany his mother on a journey to Sydney, no doubt to sort out family affairs and make sure that the business was being run effectively.
Having completed their business, mother and son left Australia and made their return to Britain via the United States of America. They crossed the country by rail and arrived in New York in time to take the Lusitania’s May sailing which was scheduled to leave New York on the morning of 1st May 1915. Having stayed at The Biltmore Hotel, they joined the liner on that morning as saloon passengers with ticket number 46107 and were escorted to their rooms - A4 for Mrs. Lassetter and A14 for her son. These rooms were the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward Edward Bond, who came from Anfield, a district of Liverpool.
The Lusitania did not actually sail until just after mid-day on 1st May and just six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, she was sunk by a torpedo fired by the German submarine U-20. At the time, the liner was only twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland and only hours away from her Liverpool destination.
Immediately after the impact, as the liner began to list to starboard, Frederick Lassetter helped his mother into a lifeboat, but not long afterwards, had to help her out again as an order had come from Captain Turner that the lifeboats should be emptied, as he was certain that the ship was not going to sink! Lassetter was helped in this task by fellow saloon passenger Harold Boulton.
Shortly afterwards, the two of them, realising that the ship was going down rapidly, then jumped into the sea. They were urged to do so by another saloon passenger and experienced seafarer, Commander John Foster Stackhouse, late of the Royal Navy, who had realised that the situation on the liner was hopeless!
An account of their survival was published in The Times, on Monday 10th May 1915, which stated: -
Mrs. Lassetter, who was covered in black smuts from the explosion, went to the cabin for a lifebelt and then on deck. Private (sic) Lassetter and Commander Stackhouse gave their lifebelts away. The former got another, then found his mother, and both jumped into the sea, and swam to an upturned boat, which soon became overcrowded.
They then swam to a flag case, to which they clung, from 2,30 till 5.30, when they were picked up by the Greek collier Katerine, having been previously been run down by a steam trawler, Mrs. Lassetter receiving a blow from the propeller.
The Greek collier Katerine was in fact the Hopkins and Jones steamer Westborough, of 6,400 tons, which was registered in Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales. She was outward bound from Havana, Cuba, with a cargo of sugar and had been diverted from Queenstown, where she intended to re-coal, to seek and pick up survivors. Her master, Captain E.L. Taylor had deliberately disguised her as a Greek merchant ship, renaming her Katerina and even flying a Greek flag, in the hope that German U-Boats would respect her supposed neutral status!
Captain Frederick D. Ellis wrote a slightly different account of events after the pair had jumped into the sea, which was written in his book The Tragedy of the Lusitania and published in America, not long after the sinking. Instead of a flag case, Ellis states that it was a grand piano which supported mother and son: -
Lieut. Lassetter, an officer of a Scottish regiment (sic) who was wounded early in the war, and had been on a voyage of three months to recover his health, was saved, together with his mother, by the saloon grand piano of the Lusitania, on which they floated for three hours.
Mr. Lassetter says that he came up near his mother after the ship went down, and sighted the piano floating with its legs up. He lifted his mother onto the piano, and then climbed aboard himself. They found the unique craft well above the waves, and perfectly seaworthy. The Lassetters were less exhausted when taken aboard a trawler than most of those persons who had been in lifeboats.
Another account, written by Harold Boulton in a letter published in his old school magazine The Stoneycroft Magazine, in June 1915 also mentioned in some detail the survival of the Lassetter’s and stated: -
Immediately the ship started to list to the starboard side, and I rushed down to the cabin of a woman, by name Mrs. Lasseter, (sic) who was returning from a tour round the world with her son, who had been wounded at the front, and at whose table I had sat on the whole voyage. I opened the door, went into the cabin and shouted to her, but there was no answer, and so I tried to turn on the light but found it would not work. Having hastily looked in the cabin to see that she was not lying there asleep, I went to my cabin, which was almost opposite, to look for my lifebelt, but someone must have taken it, as it was not there. I then rushed along the corridor - I say “rushed“, but it hardly was a rush, as there was such a list on the ship, that one foot was really on the side of the wall and the other on the floor - and I managed to get to the end of the corridor, where I found a steward giving away lifebelts. I joined three or four people waiting for them, and, having received one, rushed out to the deck in search of this woman and her son.
At last I found them on the port side, which, owing to the list of the ship, was very high up, making walking on the top very hard. I found them there eventually, and while the boy stood with his mother, I helped with a crowd of other men to push out the boats that were hanging and which had been swung out since Wednesday or Thursday, as we were nearing the danger zone, but they were swinging in instead of out, owing to the list of the ship. We had to get a sort of swing on the boat and every time she swung out the men at the ropes lowered it a little till at last it was almost on the level of the deck. Then we all shouted “let the women get in first,” and a great many women did get in, but some men, and I helped the boy and his mother into this boat.
Just as it was filling up with people the Captain for the first time appeared on the bridge, and shouting loudly and waving his hand, shrieked at the top of his voice -"don't lower the boats - don't lower the boats - the ship cannot sink - the ship cannot sink.” Then in an appealing way to the crowd of men said,“will the gentlemen kindly assist me in getting the women out of the boats and off the upper deck.” Thereupon those in the boats jumped out, and I helped the boy and his mother myself out of the boat and started with them inside on the deck. I then felt the ship tremble, and looking towards the bow I saw a lot of angry-looking water and the bow gradually being submerged, and shouted to them, “come on, let us get away; the ship's sinking; let us jump overboard,” and hurrying across the deck, had to get into the boat that had been lowered before being able to jump clear of the ship, and we all three jumped from the boat overboard. .....
Seeing a cabinet that I think was used for putting a piano in, when they keep a piano on deck for open-air concerts, and no one on it, I swam a few yards to it and scrambled on. Once on, I turned round to see where my boy friend and his mother were, and seeing them on another upturned boat about forty yards away, I shouted to them. They shouted back, “Is there any room on there for us,” and I shouted back, “Yes, by all means.” Leaning over into the water I picked up, by a piece of good luck, a broken oar and tried to paddle towards them, but needless to say, did not make very much headway. They both having put on lifebelts before they jumped overboard, jumped off their upturned boat and swam to me, and I pulled them both up. By the time the three of us were on this case - the top of it was really under water, and the hard thing to do was to balance it. We were knocked off four times altogether, and having drifted away from the bulk of the survivors, we all three sat with our legs dangling in the water, and the water up to our waists, till about 6-30.
The Lassetter’s were both eventually landed at Queenstown, from where they both made it back, in due course, safe and sound, to England.
By this time, Frederick Lassetter had been granted a commission in the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and his father had been appointed to command a Territorial Force battalion of the same regiment in The West Riding Brigade of The 49th (West Riding) Division, and was helping to train it at Strensall Camp, near York, in Yorkshire! Fred Lassetter survived the war, as did his father.
Bedroom Steward Bond who had looked after both of the Lassetters in their rooms on ‘A’ Deck, also survived the sinking and eventually made it back to his Anfield home, but Staff Captain Anderson, saloon passenger Boulton and Commander Stackhouse all lost their lives.
Elizabeth Lassetter became a widow on the 17th February 1926, when her husband died,
and Elizabeth herself died in Australia, just over a year later, on the 29th March 1927, aged 55 years. She was buried in Vault Hill Cemetery, Picton.
Australia Birth Index 1877 – 1922, Sydney Australia Anglican Parish Registers 1814 – 2011, Australia Marriage Index 1788 – 1950, Australia Death Index 1787 – 1985, 1911 Census of England & Wales, California Passenger and Crew Lists 1882 – 1959, Cunard Records, British Regiments 1914-18, London Scottish Regimental Gazette, Stoneyhurst Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Last Voyage of the Lusitania, Seven Days to Disaster, Tragedy of the Lusitania, PRO 22/71, Graham Maddocks, Nyle Monday, Stuart Williamson, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.